To The Word – Day 150

₁After the festival ended, all the people of Israel went to every city in Judah and broke the stone pillars, cut down the symbols of the goddess Asherah, and destroyed the altars and the pagan places of worship. They did the same thing throughout the rest of Judah, and the territories of Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh; then they all returned home.

₂King Hezekiah re-established the organization of the priests and Levites, under which they each had specific duties. These included offering the burnt offerings and the fellowship offerings, taking part in the temple worship, and giving praise and thanks in the various parts of the Temple. ₃From his own flocks and herds he provided animals for the burnt offerings each morning and evening, and for those offered on the Sabbath, at the New Moon Festival, and at the other festivals which are required by the Law of the LORD.

₄In addition, the king told the people of Jerusalem to bring the offerings to which the priests and the Levites were entitled, so that they could give all their time to the requirements of the Law of the LORD. ₅As soon as the order was given, the people of Israel brought gifts of their finest corn, wine, olive oil, honey, and other farm produce, and they also brought the tithes of everything they had. ₆All the people who lived in the cities of Judah brought tithes of their cattle and sheep, and they also brought large quantities of gifts, which they dedicated to the LORD their God. ₇The gifts started arriving in the third month and continued to pile up for the next four months. ₈When King Hezekiah and his officials saw how much had been given, they praised the LORD and praised his people Israel. ₉The king spoke to the priests and the Levites about these gifts, ₁₀and Azariah the High Priest, a descendant of Zadok, said to him, “Since the people started bringing their gifts to the Temple, there has been enough to eat and a large surplus besides. We have all this because the LORD has blessed his people.”

₁₁On the king's orders they prepared storerooms in the Temple area ₁₂and put all the gifts and tithes in them for safe-keeping. They placed a Levite named Conaniah in charge and made his brother Shimei his assistant. ₁₃Ten Levites were assigned to work under them: Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismachiah, Mahath, and Benaiah. All this was done under the authority of King Hezekiah and Azariah the High Priest. ₁₄Kore son of Imnah, a Levite who was chief guard at the East Gate of the Temple, was in charge of receiving the gifts offered to the LORD and of distributing them. ₁₅In the other cities where priests lived, he was faithfully assisted in this by other Levites: Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah. They distributed the food equally to their fellow-Levites according to what their duties were, ₁₆and not by clans. They gave a share to all males thirty years of age or older who had daily responsibilities in the Temple in accordance with their positions. ₁₇The priests were assigned their duties by clans, and the Levites twenty years of age or older were assigned theirs by work groups. ₁₈They were all registered together with their wives, children, and other dependants, because they were required to be ready to perform their sacred duties at any time. ₁₉Among the priests who lived in the cities assigned to Aaron's descendants, or in the pasture lands belonging to these cities, there were responsible men who distributed the food to all the males in the priestly families and to everyone who was on the rolls of the Levite clans.

₂₀Throughout all Judah, King Hezekiah did what was right and what was pleasing to the LORD his God. ₂₁He was successful, because everything he did for the Temple or in observance of the Law, he did in a spirit of complete loyalty and devotion to his God.

₁After these events, in which King Hezekiah served the LORD faithfully, Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria, invaded Judah. He besieged the fortified cities and gave orders for his army to break their way through the walls. ₂When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib intended to attack Jerusalem also, _3-4he and his officials decided to cut off the supply of water outside the city in order to prevent the Assyrians from having any water when they got near Jerusalem. The officials led a large number of people out and stopped up all the springs, so that no more water flowed out of them. ₅The king strengthened the city's defences by repairing the wall, building towers on it, and building an outer wall. In addition, he repaired the defences built on the land that was filled in on the east side of the old part of Jerusalem. He also had a large number of spears and shields made. ₆He placed all the men in the city under the command of army officers and ordered them to assemble in the open square at the city gate. He said to them, ₇“Be determined and confident, and don't be afraid of the Assyrian emperor or of the army he is leading. We have more power on our side than he has on his. ₈He has human power, but we have the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” The people were encouraged by these words of their king.

₉Some time later, while Sennacherib and his army were still at Lachish, he sent the following message to Hezekiah and the people of Judah who were with him in Jerusalem: ₁₀“I, Sennacherib, Emperor of Assyria, ask what gives you people the confidence to remain in Jerusalem under siege. ₁₁Hezekiah tells you that the LORD your God will save you from our power, but Hezekiah is deceiving you and will let you die of hunger and thirst. ₁₂He is the one who destroyed the LORD's shrines and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem to worship and burn incense at one altar only. ₁₃Don't you know what my ancestors and I have done to the people of other nations? Did the gods of any other nation save their people from the emperor of Assyria? ₁₄When did any of the gods of all those countries ever save their country from us? Then what makes you think that your god can save you? ₁₅Now don't let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you like that. Don't believe him! No god of any nation has ever been able to save his people from any Assyrian emperor. So certainly this god of yours can't save you!”

₁₆The Assyrian officials said even worse things about the LORD God and Hezekiah, the LORD's servant. ₁₇The letter that the emperor wrote defied the LORD, the God of Israel. It said, “The gods of the nations have not saved their people from my power, and neither will Hezekiah's god save his people from me.” ₁₈The officials shouted this in Hebrew in order to frighten and discourage the people of Jerusalem who were on the city wall, so that it would be easier to capture the city. ₁₉They talked about the God of Jerusalem in the same way that they talked about the gods of the other peoples, idols made by human hands.

₂₀Then King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz prayed to God and cried out to him for help. ₂₁The LORD sent an angel that killed the soldiers and officers of the Assyrian army. So the emperor went back to Assyria disgraced. One day when he was in the temple of his god, some of his sons killed him with their swords.

₂₂In this way the LORD rescued King Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the power of Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria, and also from their other enemies. He let the people live in peace with all the neighbouring countries. ₂₃Many people came to Jerusalem, bringing offerings to the LORD and gifts to Hezekiah, so that from then on all the nations held Hezekiah in honour.

₂₄About this time King Hezekiah fell ill and almost died. He prayed, and the LORD gave him a sign that he would recover. ₂₅But Hezekiah was too proud to show gratitude for what the LORD had done for him, and Judah and Jerusalem suffered for it. ₂₆Finally, however, Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem humbled themselves, and so the LORD did not punish the people until after Hezekiah's death.

₂₇King Hezekiah became very wealthy, and everyone held him in honour. He had storerooms built for his gold, silver, precious stones, spices, shields, and other valuable objects. ₂₈In addition, he had storehouses built for his corn, wine, and olive oil; barns for his cattle; and enclosures for his sheep. ₂₉Besides all this, God gave him sheep and cattle and so much other wealth that he built many cities. ₃₀It was King Hezekiah who blocked the outlet for the Spring of Gihon and channelled the water to flow through a tunnel to a point inside the walls of Jerusalem. Hezekiah succeeded in everything he did, ₃₁and even when the Babylonian ambassadors came to inquire about the unusual event that had happened in the land, God let Hezekiah go his own way only in order to test his character.

₃₂Everything else that King Hezekiah did and his devotion to the LORD are recorded in The Vision of the Prophet Isaiah Son of Amoz and in The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ₃₃Hezekiah died and was buried in the upper section of the royal tombs. All the people of Judah and Jerusalem paid him great honour at his death. His son Manasseh succeeded him as king.

₁Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 55 years. ₂Following the disgusting practices of the nations whom the LORD had driven out of the land as his people advanced, Manasseh sinned against the LORD. ₃He rebuilt the pagan places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He built altars for the worship of Baal, made images of the goddess Asherah, and worshipped the stars. ₄He built pagan altars in the Temple, the place that the LORD had said was where he should be worshipped for ever. ₅In the two courtyards of the Temple he built altars for the worship of the stars. ₆He sacrificed his sons in the Valley of Hinnom as burnt offerings. He practised divination and magic and consulted fortune tellers and mediums. He sinned greatly against the LORD and stirred up his anger. ₇He placed an image in the Temple, the place about which God had said to David and his son Solomon: “Here in Jerusalem, in this Temple, is the place that I have chosen out of all the territory of the twelve tribes of Israel as the place where I am to be worshipped. ₈And if the people of Israel will obey all my commands and keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them, then I will not allow them to be driven out of the land that I gave to their ancestors.” ₉Manasseh led the people of Judah to commit even greater sins than those committed by the nations whom the LORD had driven out of the land as his people advanced.

₁₀Although the LORD warned Manasseh and his people, they refused to listen. ₁₁So the LORD let the commanders of the Assyrian army invade Judah. They captured Manasseh, stuck hooks in him, put him in chains, and took him to Babylon. ₁₂In his suffering he became humble, turned to the LORD his God, and begged him for help. ₁₃God accepted Manasseh's prayer and answered it by letting him go back to Jerusalem and rule again. This convinced Manasseh that the LORD was God.

₁₄After this, Manasseh increased the height of the outer wall on the east side of David's City, from a point in the valley near the spring of Gihon north to the Fish Gate and the area of the city called Ophel. He also stationed an army officer in command of a unit of troops in each of the fortified cities of Judah. ₁₅He removed from the Temple the foreign gods and the image that he had placed there, and the pagan altars that were on the hill where the Temple stood and in other places in Jerusalem; he took all these things outside the city and threw them away. ₁₆He also repaired the altar where the LORD was worshipped, and he sacrificed fellowship offerings and thanksgiving offerings on it. He commanded all the people of Judah to worship the LORD, the God of Israel. ₁₇Although the people continued to offer sacrifices at other places of worship, they offered them only to the LORD.

₁₈Everything else that Manasseh did, the prayer he made to his God, and the messages of the prophets who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel. ₁₉The king's prayer and God's answer to it, and an account of the sins he committed before he repented — the evil he did, the pagan places of worship and the symbols of the goddess Asherah that he made and the idols that he worshipped — are all recorded in The History of the Prophets. ₂₀Manasseh died and was buried at the palace, and his son Amon succeeded him as king.

₂₁Amon was 22 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for two years. ₂₂Like his father Manasseh, he sinned against the LORD, and he worshipped the idols that his father had worshipped. ₂₃But unlike his father, he did not become humble and turn to the LORD; he was even more sinful than his father had been.

₂₄Amon's officials plotted against him and assassinated him in the palace. ₂₅The people of Judah killed Amon's assassins and made his son Josiah king.

₁Josiah was eight years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 31 years. ₂He did what was pleasing to the LORD; he followed the example of his ancestor King David, strictly obeying all the laws of God.

₃In the eighth year that Josiah was king, while he was still very young, he began to worship the God of his ancestor King David. Four years later he began to destroy the pagan places of worship, the symbols of the goddess Asherah, and all the other idols. ₄Under his direction the altars where Baal was worshipped were smashed, and the incense altars near them were torn down. They ground to dust the images of Asherah and all the other idols and then scattered the dust on the graves of the people who had sacrificed to them. ₅He burnt the bones of the pagan priests on the altars where they had worshipped. By doing all this, he made Judah and Jerusalem ritually clean again. ₆He did the same thing in the cities and the devastated areas of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far north as Naphtali. ₇Throughout the territory of the Northern Kingdom he smashed the altars and the symbols of Asherah, ground the idols to dust, and broke in pieces all the incense altars. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

₈In the eighteenth year of his reign, after he had purified the land and the Temple by ending pagan worship, King Josiah sent three men to repair the Temple of the LORD God: Shaphan son of Azaliah, Maaseiah, the governor of Jerusalem, and Joah son of Joahaz, a high official. ₉The money that the Levite guards had collected in the Temple was handed over to Hilkiah the High Priest. (It had been collected from the people of Ephraim and Manasseh and the rest of the Northern Kingdom, and from the people of Judah, Benjamin, and Jerusalem.) ₁₀This money was then handed over to the three men in charge of the temple repairs, and they gave it to ₁₁the carpenters and the builders to buy the stones and the timber used to repair the buildings that the kings of Judah had allowed to decay. ₁₂The men who did the work were thoroughly honest. They were supervised by four Levites: Jahath and Obadiah of the clan of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam of the clan of Kohath. (The Levites were all skilful musicians.) ₁₃Other Levites were in charge of transporting materials and supervising the workmen on various jobs, and others kept records or served as guards.

₁₄While the money was being taken out of the storeroom, Hilkiah found the book of the Law of the LORD, the Law that God had given to Moses. ₁₅He said to Shaphan, “I have found the book of the Law here in the Temple.” He gave Shaphan the book, ₁₆and Shaphan took it to the king. He reported, “We have done everything that you commanded. ₁₇We have taken the money that was kept in the Temple and handed it over to the workmen and their supervisors.” ₁₈Then he added, “I have here a book that Hilkiah gave me.” And he read it aloud to the king.

₁₉When the king heard the book being read, he tore his clothes in dismay ₂₀and gave the following order to Hilkiah, to Ahikam son of Shaphan, to Abdon son of Micaiah, to Shaphan, the court secretary, and to Asaiah, the king's attendant: ₂₁“Go and consult the LORD for me and for the people who still remain in Israel and Judah. Find out about the teachings of this book. The LORD is angry with us because our ancestors have not obeyed the word of the LORD and have not done what this book says must be done.”

₂₂At the king's command, Hilkiah and the others went to consult a woman named Huldah, a prophet who lived in the newer part of Jerusalem. (Her husband Shallum, the son of Tikvah and grandson of Harhas, was in charge of the temple robes.) They described to her what had happened, ₂₃and she told them to go back to the king and give him ₂₄the following message from the LORD: “I am going to punish Jerusalem and all its people with the curses written in the book that was read to the king. ₂₅They have rejected me and have offered sacrifices to other gods, and so have stirred up my anger by all they have done. My anger is aroused against Jerusalem, and it will not die down. ₂₆As for the king himself, this is what I, the LORD God of Israel, say: You listened to what is written in the book, ₂₇and you repented and humbled yourself before me, tearing your clothes and weeping, when you heard how I threatened to punish Jerusalem and its people. I have heard your prayer, ₂₈and the punishment which I am going to bring on Jerusalem will not come until after your death. I will let you die in peace.”

The men returned to King Josiah with this message.

₂₉King Josiah summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, ₃₀and together they went to the Temple, accompanied by the priests and the Levites and all the rest of the people, rich and poor alike. Before them all, the king read aloud the whole book of the covenant, which had been found in the Temple. ₃₁He stood by the royal column and made a covenant with the LORD to obey him, to keep his laws and commands with all his heart and soul, and to put into practice the demands attached to the covenant, as written in the book. ₃₂He made the people of Benjamin and everyone else present in Jerusalem promise to keep the covenant. And so the people of Jerusalem obeyed the requirements of the covenant they had made with the God of their ancestors. ₃₃King Josiah destroyed all the disgusting idols that were in the territory belonging to the people of Israel, and as long as he lived, he required the people to serve the LORD, the God of their ancestors.

₁King Josiah celebrated the Passover at Jerusalem in honour of the LORD; on the fourteenth day of the first month they killed the animals for the festival. ₂He assigned to the priests the duties they were to perform in the Temple and encouraged them to do them well. ₃He also gave these instructions to the Levites, the teachers of Israel, who were dedicated to the LORD: “Put the sacred Covenant Box in the Temple that King Solomon, the son of David, built. You are no longer to carry it from place to place, but you are to serve the LORD your God and his people Israel. ₄Take your places in the Temple by clans, according to the responsibilities assigned to you by King David and his son King Solomon, ₅and arrange yourselves so that some of you will be available to help each family of the people of Israel. ₆You are to kill the Passover lambs and goats. Now make yourselves ritually clean and prepare the sacrifices in order that your fellow-Israelites may follow the instructions which the LORD gave through Moses.”

₇For the use of the people at the Passover, King Josiah contributed from his own herds and flocks 30,000 sheep, lambs, and young goats, and 3,000 bulls. ₈His officials also made contributions for the people, the priests, and the Levites to use. And the officials in charge of the Temple — Hilkiah, the High Priest, Zechariah, and Jehiel — gave the priests 2,600 lambs and young goats and 300 bulls for sacrifices during the festival. ₉The leaders of the Levites — Conaniah, Shemaiah and his brother Nethanel, Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad — contributed 5,000 lambs and young goats and 500 bulls for the Levites to offer as sacrifices.

₁₀When everything was arranged for the Passover, the priests and the Levites took their places, as commanded by the king. ₁₁After the lambs and goats had been killed, the Levites skinned them, and the priests sprinkled the blood on the altar. ₁₂Then they divided among the people, by family groups, the animals for burnt offerings, so that they could offer them according to the instructions in the Law of Moses. ₁₃The Levites roasted the Passover sacrifices over the fire, according to the regulations, and boiled the sacred offerings in pots, cauldrons, and pans, and quickly distributed the meat to the people. ₁₄After this was done, the Levites provided meat for themselves and for the priests descended from Aaron, for the priests were kept busy until night, burning the animals that were burnt whole and the fat of the sacrifices. ₁₅The following musicians of the Levite clan of Asaph were in the places assigned to them by King David's instructions: Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, the king's prophet. The guards at the temple gates did not need to leave their posts, because the other Levites prepared the Passover for them. ₁₆So, as King Josiah had commanded, everything was done that day for the worship of the LORD, the keeping of the Passover Festival, and the offering of burnt offerings on the altar. ₁₇For seven days all the people of Israel who were present celebrated the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. ₁₈Since the days of the prophet Samuel, the Passover had never been celebrated like this. None of the former kings had ever celebrated a Passover like this one celebrated by King Josiah, the priests, the Levites, and the people of Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem ₁₉in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign.

₂₀After King Josiah had done all this for the Temple, King Neco of Egypt led an army to fight at Carchemish on the River Euphrates. Josiah tried to stop him, ₂₁but Neco sent Josiah this message: “This war I am fighting does not concern you, King of Judah. I have not come to fight you, but to fight my enemies, and God has told me to hurry. God is on my side, so don't oppose me, or he will destroy you.” ₂₂But Josiah was determined to fight. He refused to listen to what God was saying through King Neco, so he disguised himself and went into battle on the plain of Megiddo.

₂₃During the battle King Josiah was struck by Egyptian arrows. He ordered his servants, “Take me away; I'm badly hurt!” ₂₄They lifted him out of his chariot, placed him in a second chariot which he had there, and took him to Jerusalem. There he died and was buried in the royal tombs. All the people of Judah and Jerusalem mourned his death.

₂₅The prophet Jeremiah composed a lament for King Josiah. It has become a custom in Israel for the singers, both men and women, to use this song when they mourn for him. The song is found in the collection of laments.

₂₆Everything that Josiah did — his devotion to the LORD, his obedience to the Law, ₂₇and his history from beginning to end — is all recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

₁The people of Judah chose Josiah's son Joahaz and anointed him king in Jerusalem. ₂Joahaz was 23 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. ₃King Neco of Egypt took him prisoner and made Judah pay 3.4 tonnes of silver and 34 kilogrammes of gold as tribute. ₄Neco made Joahaz' brother Eliakim king of Judah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Joahaz was taken to Egypt by Neco.

₅Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. He sinned against the LORD his God. ₆King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia invaded Judah, captured Jehoiakim, and took him to Babylonia in chains. ₇Nebuchadnezzar carried off some of the treasures of the Temple and put them in his palace in Babylon. ₈Everything that Jehoiakim did, including his disgusting practices and the evil he committed, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

₉Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months and ten days. He too sinned against the LORD. ₁₀When spring came, King Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin to Babylonia as a prisoner, and carried off the treasures of the Temple. Then Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah king of Judah and Jerusalem.

₁₁Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. ₁₂He sinned against the LORD and did not listen humbly to the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke the word of the LORD.

₁₃Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had forced him to swear in God's name that he would be loyal. He stubbornly refused to repent and return to the LORD, the God of Israel. ₁₄In addition, the leaders of Judah, the priests, and the people followed the sinful example of the nations round them in worshipping idols, and so they defiled the Temple, which the LORD himself had made holy. ₁₅The LORD, the God of their ancestors, had continued to send prophets to warn his people, because he wanted to spare them and the Temple. ₁₆But they ridiculed God's messengers, ignoring his words and laughing at his prophets, until at last the LORD's anger against his people was so great that there was no escape.

₁₇So the LORD brought the king of Babylonia to attack them. The king killed the young men of Judah, even in the Temple. He had no mercy on anyone, young or old, man or woman, sick or healthy. God handed them all over to him. ₁₈The king of Babylonia looted the Temple, the temple treasury, and the wealth of the king and his officials, and took everything back to Babylon. ₁₉He burnt down the Temple and the city, with all its palaces and its wealth, and broke down the city wall. ₂₀He took all the survivors to Babylonia, where they served him and his descendants as slaves until the rise of the Persian Empire. ₂₁And so what the LORD had foretold through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “The land will lie desolate for seventy years, to make up for the Sabbath rest that has not been observed.”

₂₂In the first year that Cyrus of Persia was emperor, the LORD made what he had said through the prophet Jeremiah come true. He prompted Cyrus to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his empire:

₂₃“This is the command of Cyrus, Emperor of Persia. The LORD, the God of Heaven, has made me ruler over the whole world and has given me the responsibility of building a temple for him in Jerusalem in Judah. Now, all of you who are God's people, go there, and may the LORD your God be with you.”